The Future of Soviet Russia
Abramowitsch, Raphael
The Future of Soviet Russia :: by Raphael Abramowitsch Russian Revolution Gravely Imperilled by Stalin Dictatorship - False Economic Policies, Suppression of All Liberties and Tendency to 1^na...
...A fortnight ago cables from Moscow informed us of the promulgation of a Soviet Government decree making children over 12 subject to the criminal law on the same level with adults...
...Under Socialist rule an internal market was developed for the Swedish cultivators...
...The state is one big oapV talist, ruling the country oa tot basis of dictatorship, with no potability for the working class to ia...
...In 1913 the per capita grain production was 630 kilograms...
...The paper was not talking about Getmany, but about Russia...
...With the crown on the gold standard, Sweden could not have held her foreign markets...
...When it arrived to power the situation of the peasant was an agonizing one...
...Five or six years ago there were only a few dozen...
...To understand the scope of this feat it must be 'borne in mind that Sweats, baa a- population of 6,190,364, one-twentieth of that of the United State...
...The sum total of the forcible collectivization has been a loss of about 50 per cent in livestock aad no mere grain than in 1913...
...There is in Sweden no sectarian (religious) political party as in many other countries, and workers of city and country, regardless of religious belief, flock to tbe Socialist standard, religion being considered there as being wholly outside the economic and political domain...
...There is no freedom of speech, of press, of organization...
...They are now years...
...The grain crop in 1934 was 90 million metric -tons...
...it j towards those above tiasnfRi the direction in which the pajltul ogy of the Stalin state hi driftiag...
...In 1918, four years before the revolution, the grain crop totalled 8k6 million metric' tons, or only 12 per cent lea...
...There is no peace in Russia between the most important doss of the Russian Revolution and the government that ia leading the revolution...
...In fact many tillers of the soil are Socialist Party members...
...The Cost of CulUclNltoHuei The collectivization program began in the winter of 1929 and 1980...
...j wOnssw ornovjiwaans rnawvi When we turn from thus hnaaam aspect of the situation to the economic aspect, what do- we see...
...It waa MM part of tbe disgusting flattery aad sycophancy that permeates tit Soviet bureaucracy, a sycophancy, which did not however cave KaanV nev from imprisonment and ext...
...Were the Russian workers in a position to make their influence felt upon the government and its, policy, they would bring about an improvement in thenliving conditions by forcing a drastic curtailment of the industrialization program...
...Under normal conditions it would be possible for the Russian people to compel the government to enter upon a compromise with the peasantry, aa Lenin did ia 1921, when he introduced th* Now Economic Policy, ruthlessly abandoned by' Stalin with the introduction of his industrialization aad collectivization program...
...With the tremendous investments poured into the building of huge plants by the government, it is impossible for it to satisfy the needs of the workers...
...Battita agriculture now boasts about 250,000 tractors...
...The peasant has always resented the demand* of the government, in taxes, aad the requisitions carried out by commissars...
...The overthrow of Czar ism and the establishment of a revolutionary government, first under Kereaaky and then under Lenin, was possible only because the Russian peasantry was a revolutionary class...
...By 1932 it wen down to 40 per cent, and by 1933 to 38 per cent...
...In 1930, after the first year of collectivization, this number has been reduced to 52,000,000...
...We thus new have a situation in Russia nadir which children over 12, boys and girls, are to be sent to concentration camps, to forced labor, and to execution for certain crimes...
...The result has been that thousands of unemployed have been returned to work...
...We see the vast Russian peasantry, with its own aims, ekes struggles, class interests and daa psychology...
...The situation presented is thus a permanent struggle between the various classes of peasants against the government, paraWH with an internal struggle within the collectives for the distribution of what the government does not take away...
...We ban seen the magnificent French Rev*, lution of 130 years ago, led */ men like Marat, Danton...
...From the very beginning the Russian Revolution was a revolution of the peasants...
...Only 30 per cent of the peasants are still individual, not collective, farmers...
...In 1916, oa tbe territory now comprising Soviet Russia, we had 35,000,000 horses...
...and during the first two or three months they were in power conditions had even got worse...
...It was not th* m*a* of Rousseau, the intellectual faOar of the revolution, that the revolution should end in Bonapartisa, that a Second Empire and a "ra! public of bankers" should bt tbe ,' heirs of the revolution...
...But the population of the territory now comprising Soviet Russia was 113,000,000 in 1918, as compared with the present population of 160,000,000, an increase of 22 per cent...
...This constitutes the basis of the constant struggle - between the peasantry and the government...
...With the danger ef war, with the very great social***' economic difficulties confronting Soviet Russia, the moral pretaoai of the international proletariat may force the Soviet Govermaett to alter it* policy, to strike ftp upon the road of democracy in th* Soviet regime, to make of th* Soviet* real Parliament* of tat workers and peasants, to give the peasants in the collectives t» opportunity to achieve real •genomic freedom, to lay the basis lor true Socialism in Russia...
...In 1931 it waa 77.000,000...
...What about cattle...
...These were children whose fathers bad died in the war, in the civil war, in pogroms in th* Ukraine, etc...
...In 1929 Russia had 147,000,000 sheep and goats...
...in 1932 we had 19,000,000...
...Among other things th* article said: "The ruthlessly suppressed matte* are merely the instrument for these tyrants, who do not regard them as differing in any way from dead matter...
...the growth of cereals was encouraged by bounties, and by a judicious credit policy effective demand was created among the peasants who bad too often been content with an insufficient standard of living...
...In the language of our party, we all believed tbat the Russian Revolution would be a petty-bourgeois and not a proletarian revolution...
...In other countries the peasantry played a revolutionary role in times past, when it sought to break the fetters of the old feudal regime, but sines then, in other countries, the peasantry, its property ambitions satisfied, ha* become conservative and even reactionary...
...There and of aU of them, with the exetaUJtut-at'the bmroanaey, aamtest Yon have heard also of the progress made by Soviet Russia in industry...
...The two Socialist ministers had a long conference on the subject that is most essential in their immediate task, the war against unemployment...
...There are new in Russia hundreds of thousands of children with ne parents and no homes...
...AM the end of that revolution est dictatorship, war, Napoleon taj Bonapartiem...
...He is not) allowed a will of his own...
...We have a peasantry freed from the landowners, from the aristocracy, but we have not a free class of free farmers, free economically, socially and politically...
...By 1931 the number had been reduced to-47.9 per cent of what it waa in 1929...
...In the official journal of tbe Bolsheviks of 1903 and 1906, who at that time constituted a faction in our party, you will find plenty of articles and material supporting the argument that the Russian Revolution would be a democratic revolution, a petty-bourgeois revolution, and that it would be the aim of the Bolsheviks to establish a revolutionary dictatorship to carry out tbe purposes of the bourgeois revolution, not of the proletariat...
...Hie address will be published fa an early issue...
...3 p. m.—Sports...
...per cent of the Russian workers...
...Stalin admitted the facts about privation and starvation among the Russian people daa to the gig-antic investments caused by the Five-Year Plan and forced collectivization...
...self...
...We have a system in tft' private capitalism ia abolishes, |m offering ne opportunity for u>*a Socialist construction...
...Brutality and utter tack *f it man for those below, flattery aa4mfff...
...And parallel with this we baa* in the villages and industrialplana1 a system of inequality, of saseaj privileges, of social differontitfltrik of divisions into lower ami hthtt, classes...
...on the beautiful private estate of a comrade at Butler, New Jersey...
...Credit* have been advanced on which no interest is to be paid for the first two years, with ten years to amortize t*a loan...
...Sweden's Socialist Government Faces Problems of Capitalist Crisis Moeller, Minister of Social Welfare, Tells of Notable Achievements Of Government Headed by Per Albin Haneson by Adrien Gam bet ? ustave, moeller, m«iister of Social Affairs of Sweden, represented the Socialist Party of his country at the Easter Congress of the Netherlands Socialist Party and pushed on to Brussels, where he conferred with Friedrich Adler, Secretary of the Labor and Socialist International, and Comrade Henri de Man...
...Subsidies to private industry have enabled 56,080 small businesses and 1,000 large ones to man Hat the worst plwttf of to* crisis, to keep their personnel awork and even to augment it from the ranks of the unemployed...
...In 1916 Russia had 58,000,000 oxen, bulls, cows...
...supporting itself on the faJflS the secret police, on the Red Arm) a dictatorship that wields aa UV solute monopoly of political puma, against the wish asm will ef^^Rj peasantry, against the desires taj demands of the workers, and apt even in harmony with importaat parts of the Communist Party fc...
...Speaking at the same meeting was also Sir Stafford Cripps, left wing member of the executive committee of the British Labor Party...
...Wa hare no statistical data about the peasants who were net exiled but shot...
...The aha* of the government during th* present economic crisis can be summed up in the iliijgaai: ' Beat the depression...
...spite the good will of the lea*** had a very aad ending...
...It is true that 7© per cent of the Russian peasants have joined the collective farms...
...As Plekhanoff, our great teacher, pot it at the very beginning of the Social Democratic movement in Russia, the Russian Revolution would be a working class revolution or it will not be at all...
...Old Conception Abandoned This conception of the revolution, akanisuid by the Bolsheviks ¦wring the World War...
...It was assured oa* the support of the prosant party (36 seats) and the radical liberals (4 seats) and thus commanded 152 votes or close to two-thirds of the Chamber for' the ministry headed by the new premier...
...The basis upon which the revolution recto ia unstable and will remain unstable as long as th* government fails to meet the aims, needs and ideals of the Russian peasantry...
...When the Socialist government came into office the crisis had already deeply affected the country and the general attitude was pessimistic...
...It was the deification of a man, the setting up of a new Off in Russia...
...Prances PoUae on "The Work of the School...
...In other words, daring the period of forcible collectivization Russia gained 290,000 tractors, or about 4.000,000 horsepower, but lost 17,000,000 natural horsepower...
...The Future of Soviet Russia :: by Raphael Abramowitsch Russian Revolution Gravely Imperilled by Stalin Dictatorship - False Economic Policies, Suppression of All Liberties and Tendency to 1^na partism - Democrat^ of Soviet Only Way to Stop Threat of Reaction—Moral Pressure of International Socialisn Required *T*HE remarkable speech de* livered May 6th in Moscow by Josef Stalin before the Red Army Cadets confirms in the main the assertions made in the article printed herewith...
...This ministry came into power as a result of the elections of September, 1932, with 104 Socialist seats out of 230...
...This is the true aRmapjfe in Russia...
...At the outbreak of the revolution we had in Russia 100,000,000 peasants, whose aim it was to expropriate the land of the big landowners and to become free, independent farmers...
...Thank* to the support of the people the party hat been able to continue along its policy which permits it to manage without raising tax** while still balancing the budget...
...There has been great' progress in tbe so-called heavy industries—iron, coal, power and chemical industries...
...in 1983 the number had been reduced to 16,000,000...
...fluence the policies of the rakei or to give free expression to the will, the aims, the hopes of tat workers...
...Mrs...
...The number of pigs and swine ia 1929 waa 20,000,000...
...What of tee) Future 7 i What can be the future of , a system...
...These results began to he evident Within tight lIlliialH after the Socialist government took office at the depth of the depression...
...These are children of "collectivized" peasants, the children of psasaals sent to concentration camps, shot or exiled...
...to fuf ways and means of tomptltlUf...
...Th* program is aa follows: 12 a. m.—the Conference...
...Today the peasants find themselves ruled by party dictatorship, ruling in the name of the workers, and consisting of intellectuals and bureaucrats...
...thousands of agricultural enterprises had failed and many more were on the brink of ruin...
...We have in Russia a system it unprecedented state capitalism, a* private capitalism but state t*S talism...
...Is this the moral bask ants which a Socialist society cat If built...
...W« suH regard the Russian government as ] a revolutionary government...
...But today a child of over 12, born under the Soviet regime, after the end of the civil war, is subject to exile to concentration camps and to capital punishment...
...In 1933 it was 50,000,000, a loss of 97,000,000 sheep and ajeata...
...And all this I* pita* a ted by the growing psychology of this new state es pi talmas eta tendencies to Boss partis at...
...And even when you are a member of the •Communist Party you dare not express an opinion contrary to Stalin's...
...But when yon consider the political and economic struggle which the Russian peasantry has been waging against the forcible collectivization of igri culture, you will perceive the nodest results that have been obtained by this grand and beautiful idea of transforming the peasantry nto one big, organized collective...
...The Socialist Party has taught the peasant to conduct his farm and home in comfort...
...Frost oa address before a Socialist Party membership meeting ia New York City...
...And what was tat purport of that so-called "Marxha" speech...
...In Sweden the united front of the workers of town and country has been realized...
...replied that tbe whole aim of Socialist policy had been to augment the purchasing power of the mass of consumers and that it has succeeded in attaining this goal...
...The Swedish Socialist Party did not hesitate to form a government, hoping through its policy to win a parliamentary majority...
...You know what happened to Trotsky and, more recently, to Zinoviev and Kameneff when they ventured to differ with Stalin...
...In Sweden the peasants are not hostile in Socialism and the Agrarian party is the strongest supporter of the Socialist ministry...
...Committee of the Teachers' Union Auxiliary," and Wfcfcr...
...In 1981 it rose to 14,000,000...
...Bat Mr...
...The will belong* to the Ifleitflar...
...The will belongs to the dictator...
...In 1932 it fell to 11,000,000, and in 1933 it stood at 12,000,000...
...At the same time, however, because of conditions peculiar to Russia, all Marxists believed the main moving power of tbe revolution would be the working class...
...Belgian Minister of Public Works and of the Reabsorption of Unemployment...
...But what have we now in Russia...
...The fare is $100...
...The first aim of the Hansson government was to break the crisis and to overcome the crisis mentality...
...The application of chemistry and fertiliser on a modern baste now characterizes Russian agriculture...
...Democratization of the flesh* system is the only road opt* far the salvation of th* rtvalatite t*tf satisfyiag the w,II and the cotton* aim* *f th* peo pie...
...of th* Socialist Party arid the Socialist Teachers' Group will take place on Sunday, May 19th...
...Comrade Per Aftin Hanaaen...
...C. Hodge oa "Organixfigp ffneianst Parents...
...In 1930, after the first winter of collectivization, we had' 30,000,000, or a loss of 4,000,000 horses...
...But the political situation in Russia is not a normal one...
...It has forced him to work on the land as a worker in a huge agricultural factory dominated aad controlled by the dictatorial state...
...The amount of grain assigned for direct consumption remains thus practically, unchanged as compared with the years before 1914...
...There are modal houses, and model schools, aad model towns with gardens, but only for perhaps one or two...
...The rest of the working das* Uvea under indescribably bad conditions...
...We see the Russia, workers, consisting of about two or three million elder eiemsati with some Socialist tradition, aal 12 or 15 million young work est from she villages, people who but yesterday were peasants, today workers, but retaining the psychology and traditions of p*aaaM| We see a bureaucracy very must inclined to consider itself quit* tftt most important thing in the UN{§| We see s regime wMeh earn in at way be controlled by the wil tf the people...
...What is the use of all our struggles, say the peasants...
...Party dietatiiiabst, a ptehte testa personal leadership, th* WW** principle...
...Ia that speech Kameaft actually sought to prove that a* dictatorship of the proletariat am synonymous with the dictatorial" of one man, Stalin...
...WmIa Russia we have what Ut* a| ship not of a party, or of the p* Ietariat, or of the peasantry, •% have a dictatorship of a esrta* group of the Coaamumst PejH...
...VO understand the mainsprings and principal tendencies of the Russian Revolution is the duty of all Socialists...
...Nazi I ¦¦in Paoer Tiiiriii For Once, the Truth BERLIN.—The Deutsche, official organ of the German Labor Front, which ceased publication at the beginning of 1935, made its exit with an article entitled "M?b*| Man or Personality...
...The mass man is not allowed a will of his own...
...Burnt* and private automobiles (which are expected to be contributed by comrades), will leave the People's House, 7 East 15th Street, New York City, 9 A.M...
...This constitutes one of the gravest dangers confronting the Russian Revolution...
...This has been possible only by do pairing the population of 160.000.000 of even the barest necessities, by taking away fro— the peasants more than 50 per cent of their output in grain, cattle, milk, etc...
...The peasant always was and remains the main governing factor in the Russian Revolution...
...During the past five year* 70 per cent of the Kaasiau paaaeaai have been organized in collectives, with modern machinery, under scientific supervision, with lectures, university instructors, etc...
...The mast man is out- a1lowed to crest* or to strive for progress, for the dictator atone dejcwta fjjpliii, Jpaaall go forward orb* iiiteiiiiptt* . . Those who bcheve that th* article f* directed against German Nazi methods are mistaken...
...It is true that Stalin now tries to justify bis policy by tbe necessities of military defense, but those who know the origin of the industrialization and collectivization plans will agree that the real cause of tbe gigantic plans was the Utopian idea of establishing Socialism in one country, the road to Socialism by starvation.—Editor...
...There is no means of expressing an opinion that is not the opinion of Stalin...
...especially when they came into newer was based on a Marxian interpretation of the role of tbe peasantry in the Russian Revolution...
...Duranty is not only loyal to this government, but b* is always its advocate...
...Conversely, the lot of the peasant ia one of the chief concerns of th* Socialist Party...
...The techmqne it praetteaUy test of fascist Italy and Hitler Geimae...
...Sunday, May 19...
...4 p. m.—A performance by the Rebel Arte Players...
...Henry S. Pascal on "Parents' Organizations...
...Duranty s cable gives yea a yardstick by which to measure the extent of the social upheaval that took place in Russia during that winter and what the forcible collectivization of agriculture has meant sine* then in terms of human lives and economic dislocation...
...Sweden still has 80,000 unemployed, including 30,000 seasonally unemployed and consequently cannot logically be numbered among the uipwaployea resulting from the depression...
...The collective is aa organization of peasants interested in not giving too much to the government- The government demands the products of the peasantry in order that it might invest the proceed* in industry...
...Mere and more the p*ych*ltflT and evolution of the Soviet regie* it turning in th* drrertio* *f And th* only way to aa*» net great Russian Revelation ia to tarn that Doiispartist tendency...
...a change in the policy of the Stan* regime...
...It is characteristic of the blindness prevailing in Germany today, that the writer did not set tbat his arguments applied with mare than equal fore* to th* German dictatorship...
...This is not because the Soviet leaders would not like to give them better conditions, but it is an economic impossibility to do so when all the money available, wrung from the toil of the peasants, is being invested in heavy industry, in the development of a gigantic program of industrialization...
...Is this the instrument whs which Socialism can be promoted...
...What we have is a dictatorship which not only forces the peasants to pursue a certain aim, bat forces them by military compulsion, by the power of dictatorship, to accept an economic policy utterly foreign to the psychology, the historic aims and even the interests of the peasantry itself...
...It can be easily understood that a law as severe as this was not promulgated to deal with a few dozen spoiled children, bet rather to cope with tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of incorrigible* whom the government is unable to handle and to bring up as honest men and women...
...Bat what is the actual economic result...
...We, Russian Social***, , cannot be very optimistic...
...We Socialists know oai* oa* way in which this map bt accomplished: moral prosaeao sot only by ail Russian Socialist* but by the entire international Outlaw* movement...
...Ia it any w sneer that the Russian peasant ia dissatisfied with this situation...
...Enslavement of Peasantry The Soviet government has robbed the Russian peasant of his economic freedom, his political freedom, his social freedom...
...The government ha* carried out a program of housing development in the big cities...
...By that we meant a revolution led by the working class, but not seeking the aim of building Socialism in Russia, because of the absence of the essential social and economic prerequisites for Socialism...
...But on the other hand tbe Soviet Governjnnt is eellcting tremendous stocks of groin and foodstuffs for war and emergency purposes...
...The program of public works has been extremely inclusive and hat embraced no less than fifty different categories, while at the same time it respected the autonomy of cities and communes and encouraged their initiative in this matter...
...The peasant resents the government's policy of robbing him of half of his income...
...And the law in Russia provides capital punishment for certain kinds of crime...
...In the New York Times of February 3, 1931, you will find a Moscow cable by Walter Duranty...
...Kba are children of peasants who died of starvation during the years 1932 and 1933...
...PeHlcaHoa of Oa* Maa At the recent CommuniatJH gress in Moscow, Kamenev deUvtred a long speech...
...But we have had augr revolutions in history which, g...
...increase purchasing power...
...In 1931 we had 26,000,000...
...with Its best aims and the finest intentioat, the most idealistic purposes...
...In other words, we have a crop increase of 12 per cent aad an increase in population of 22 per cent...
...work for everybody...
...Ia 1929, after the revolution and civil war, etc, tbe number was 34,000,000, practically the same...
...In 1930 it fell to 13,000,000...
...In 1929 the number stood at 65,000,000...
...In the interior the purchasing power of the crown has been maintained...
...There are 8 Communists as well...
...sonally do not doubt the Sociaaa ' aspirations of Stalin, Molotet, Kalinin, etc...
...The collectives are run not by peasants but by the government, directed by a bureaucratic administration, whose members are the new rural aristocracy, enjoying I-Jp^SpeSsew* :-: ' uaa*M(fch^pT ¦ ©f tlad* adaRtnlS* tration of a collective receives twice the pay of the peasant...
...In reply to a question as to whether the purchasing power of the masses had been maintained, Comrade Moeller...
...While in Brussels Moeller gave an interview on the economic rehabilitation of his country, which is governed by a Socialist ministry...
...In the light industries, such as textiles, etc., the progress has been slow...
...Parent-Teachers' Conference To Be Held on May 19th The annual May festival and parent-teachers' conference under the joint soap ices of the- Women's Committee...
...In other words, the Bolsheviks, tike all those who spoke as Marxists, believed that Russia waa not ready for Socialism and that the purpose of the Russian Revolution, aa limited not by the will of human beings bat by historic circumstances, would be the introduction of political democracy and other changes compatible with a bourgeois revolution, in order to pare the way for farther struggle for ultimate Socialist aims...
...The production of' iron (pig iron and steel) has risen to 9,000,000and 10,000,000 tons...
...why aid we spill oar bleed to save the revelation from the attacks of the white guards...
...And in that cable yon will read that during the winter of 1929-30 more than two million Russian peasants were arrested and exiled to concentration camps, to enforced labor...
...The same was true, yon will remember, twelve years ago when you read so much about the Russian "Bezprizorny"-waifs...
...It is true that before the war important amounts of grain were exported every year from Russia, while today Russian grain exportation is negligible...
...Then tins program wa* put into effect, its application began in July, 1933, and the results are as given above...
...Me PtaaeJit far Workers At the same time, Soviet Russia is no p»"«»«-» fer the workers...
...In 1934, under the regime of collective farming we have a per capita production of 570 kilograms...
...It has forced him to become s day laborer...
...1 p. at.' . Picnic Lunch...
...Calculations a rem*** with th* 'mass man' just as calculations are made with machinery, goods, construction...
...In 1930 the number fell to 108,000,000...
...Even Lenin, as late as 1915, considered the coming Russian Revolution a revolution of the petty bourgeois Russian peasantry, and that the aim of this revolution, under the political, social and economic circumstances of Russia, could not be the building of a Socialist regime...
...When we examine the internal mechanism of the Russian herniation, what do we see...
...Else why such severity...
...Thanks to its policy of works and subsidies to enterprises the number of unemployed has been considerably reduced with the result that purchasing power hat been greatly increased, and this, in turn, has led to a pick-up in a number of industries...
...Working class housing and schools have been developed, road* and urbanization have bees ujadertaken, and exploitation of forests (Sweden it a country of great forests and tbe source of raw material for the match ami paper industries...
...In 1931, the devaluation of the Swedish krone had occurred and this, the Socialists felt, assisted htem in attaining their ends, which in fact, they could not have attained without it, as the proud sterling [England ia Sweden's greatest customer] had already gone off tbe gold standard...
...Tbe great hope and aim of the Russian peasantry, during generations of oppositionist and revolutionary struggle, was always to become free farmers, on free land, with free homes, in a free Russian republic...
...This progress has been due, however, to tremendous capital in' vestment made annually by the Soviet Government, aa high as 20,000,000,000 gold roubles a year...
...You know tbat Walter Duranty and his reports are always favorable to the Stalin government...
...The j results have been an agreeable surprise—over 100,000 unemployed have, returned to work as a result of the Socialist policy...
...The speakers at the conference, it waa announced, will be Albert Smallheiser on "The Teacher and the Parent...
...In 1932 it was 52,000,000...
...And do you think that this tremendous destruetiveness fills the Russian peasant with faith in Socialism...
...is a cipher, he is just one particle 1 of an immense machine...
...Today Russia produces 26,000,000 tons of oil products annually...
...The result is permanent hostility and opposition on the part of the peasantry to the government...
Vol. 18 • May 1935 • No. 19
